Break Up
by evieeden
Summary: When Bella goes missing one evening, her father worries what's happened to her. Advent story written for 17th December.


**Happy 17****th**** December everyone. I hope you're all having a lovely advent season so far and I hope you enjoy reading this latest offering for you all. Just a quick note, this story takes place in a universe where Bella doesn't know that the Cullens are vampires.**

**Once again, I must bow down to the awesome beta-ness of idealskeptic, who keeps this whole thing running smoothly. And as always, I don't own Twilight.**

**Break Up**

I shut the front door behind me with a shiver of relief.

It was a foul night out there. A cold wind had blown up, threatening ice in the morning, and it had begun to rain just as I was leaving the station. I was glad to be home for the evening on a night like this, especially after finishing a double shift.

The house was dark and, stamping my feet on the mat, I called out to my daughter.

"Bella? You here?"

There was no reply so I didn't think she was taking a nap or anything. She must be out with that Cullen boy.

My top lip curled at the thought of that boy's smug face. I didn't like him and I wasn't going to make any excuses for it. Something about that whole family was just... off.

I like Carlisle and his wife – you could tell they were good people – but their children...

Maybe it was because they were all adopted or fostered. That had to cause some emotional damage and it would explain why their behaviour was so odd on occasion.

But that boy.

I was fairly certain that my daughter was innocent, but you'd never think it from the look on his face that just screamed 'I nailed your daughter'. There was something about how he always seemed to know what people wanted to hear and never seemed to get flustered. I had been a cop for a long time and whatever he thought he was pulling over me, he was mistaken. I could tell when someone was selling me a line.

Still, Bells appeared to like him, and I guessed that as long as he was treating her right and she wasn't coming home crying or with bruises or the like then I wouldn't interfere.

Resigning myself to dinner for one, I ran upstairs to get changed and headed to the kitchen, my sights firmly set on the pizza menu pinned to the corkboard. I was just reaching for the phone when I caught a glimpse of white on the table. Turning my head, I saw that Bells had left me a note.

_Hi Dad_

_Went for a walk in the forest by the house. Be back soon._

_Bella._

Well, that explained where my daughter was, but not why she was there.

I peered out the window, a frown on my face. It was getting late and the rain was beginning to pour down harder. It was hardly the time to be wandering around in the dark where you could get turned around and lost easily. Plus, Bella wasn't exactly known for being the outdoors type.

I wondered if this was one of her boyfriend's ideas. It certainly didn't seem like something she'd choose to do by herself, especially if it was raining.

A smile came to my face at that thought.

You'd think having lived here in Washington all her life, she would be used to the weather by now. But no, Bella still hated the cold and the damp just as much as she had when she was little girl.

I got the feeling that next year, when she went off to college, she'd probably choose somewhere warm, possibly the desert, just to avoid the constant rain here. Although, I could be wrong. So far she had applied for lots of places in the north of the country, some even in Alaska of all places. I had the feeling though that she might be being influenced by Edward when it came to those things. He was curiously adverse to sunlight, citing a skin condition. It made sense that he would be the one picking places with limited sunshine.

Crossing through the living room, I looked out of the window at the back of the house to see if I could see Bella returning. There was no sign of her and it was getting difficult to see outside with the driving rain against the glass.

Hoping that Bella had taken shelter somewhere, I decided to carry on and order dinner. If she wasn't back by the time it arrived then I would go out and look for her.

What was she thinking going out for a walk on a night like this?

Pizza ordered, I sat down and flicked the TV on. There was a game on, but my attention kept being drawn back towards the window.

Visions of Bella having an accident and lying wounded on the forest floor assaulted my brain. What if she was lying there calling for help and no-one could hear? She could be entering the first stages of hypothermia as I sat here.

Five more minutes passed and I gave up trying to distract myself.

This was ridiculous. I was going out to look for her.

Picking up the phone, I called Billy. If I was going to go out tracking, then I needed help.

"Hello?" My oldest friend's voice came over the line.

"Billy, it's Charlie? Listen, can you round up some of your boys to come over here? Bella's missing."

"Missing?" His tone turned sharp. "What happened?"

"She left a note saying that she was going for a walk in the forest, but she's not back yet," I told him.

There was a brief pause before he next spoke. "Did she go out there with that Cullen boy?"

I blinked, taken aback by the question. "Well... I don't know. I assumed so, but..."

I was interrupted by the sound of the front door swinging open. Spinning around I saw my daughter traipse in, completely sodden from head to foot, her hair dripping, her head down.

I could have collapsed with relief.

"Billy," I said in the phone. "It's okay. She's here. She's back." Anyone could've heard the relief in my voice.

"Is she all right?" he asked.

"Seems to be." She was in one piece with no visible injuries at least. "Listen, I'll call you tomorrow."

We said our goodbyes and then hung up.

"Bells." I approached my daughter. "What were you doing out there in this weather?"

A slight hitch of her breath caught my attention and I looked at her carefully. Her bowed face was wet, but not from the rain.

"Oh Bella, what happened?"

She took a shuddering breath and then burst into fresh tears.

"Bella, Bella."

Reaching out, I pulled her into a hug and she buried her face into my chest as she sobbed. I was getting wet from her soaked clothes, but I wasn't about to pull away. This was my baby and I was here for as long as she needed me to be.

I murmured useless platitudes as I held her, telling her that everything was going to be fine, that she was going to be okay and that I was here for her. One hand stroked her hair as she gradually began to calm down, her breaths becoming more even as she gained her composure.

Eventually, she pulled back, wiping her nose impatiently with the back of her hand.

"Bella." I crouched down slightly, forcing to meet my eyes. "What happened? Where were you? I was worried."

"I was in the forest," she said haltingly.

"Yes, your letter said. But what were you doing there?"

She blinked at me in incomprehension. "What letter? I didn't write a letter."

She must have forgotten about it. "Your letter that you left to tell me where you had gone."

She frowned, but eventually shook her head.

"I... when I got home from school, Edward was waiting for me, and asked me to go for a walk with him," she explained her absence. "And then he... he..."

What...? _He what...?!_

If he had laid one untoward finger on my baby girl I was going to kill him.

"He dumped me," she wailed and then burst into tears again.

I wrapped my arms around her once more, rocking her gently from side to side.

I was going to kill him anyway. How dare that shifty little upstart upset my daughter like this?! I mean, I was glad that he was gone, of course. Now I didn't have to worry about him sneaking around anymore, convincing Bella that she wasn't good enough for him or his rich family, but at the same time, I didn't want Bella upset either.

It was a dilemma.

"Oh, Bells. I'm so sorry, sweetheart." I kissed her on the crown of her head. "I'm so sorry."

I could say it because it was true. I may have been glad that her boyfriend was gone, but I had never wanted my daughter to be hurt like this. It near killed me to see her upset like this.

However, even though I was happy that Cullen was finally out of the picture, I still didn't get everything.

"Bella, why did he take you out into the forest to talk to you?"

"I don't know," she said, her voice trembling. "He just said we should go for a walk and then when we had walked along the trail for a while, he stopped and said that his family were leaving town 'cos Carlisle had got a new job and that he didn't want to have anything more to do with me."

The sorrow on her face was heartbreaking.

"He said..." She half-sobbed half-hiccupped. "He said..." she tried again, "that I was just a distraction. And then he left."

My jaw clenched.

That filthy, no good, son of a bitch said my daughter, whose shoes he wasn't even fit to kiss, _my daughter_ was just a distraction. Not only that, he had taken her all the way out into the forest on a night like this only to leave her alone there in the dark to find her own way back.

That boy was lucky he was leaving town, else he might find himself locked up a little more often. He shouldn't think that I hadn't noticed him and his family's constant traffic violations. I was fairly certain he had climbed into Bella's room at night as well on occasion. Breaking and entering into a police chief's home was a serious business.

For now, my focus had to be Bella.

She was a mess, both physically and emotionally.

I wasn't sure that I could do anything about the emotional part. I had never been real good with showing my feelings, although I made sure that Bella knew I loved her no matter what. Break ups, however, were the kind of thing that a girl would generally need her mother for.

But her mother wasn't here. Her mother had never really been here in the first place. There was just me.

Just me and my wonderful, terrifying, teenage daughter. I would do the best I could for her.

Which for now meant sorting out her immediate wellbeing.

"Bells," I murmured into her hair. "Why don't you go and have a hot shower and get out of these wet clothes? You'll freeze otherwise and I don't want you getting sick.

She nodded again my chest and then drew back, her eyes swollen, her cheeks red and blotchy.

I cupped her face and placed a fond kiss on her forehead.

"First things first, we need to get you warm again. You've been outside for a long time, and then when you come down again we can talk. How does that sound?"

She sniffled, but nodded. "Okay. Thanks Dad."

I pulled her into another brief hug before pushing her gently towards the stairs.

With one glance back, she followed my instructions, going first to her bedroom and then to the bathroom. I sprinted up the stairs once I heard the shower switch on. I quickly changed out of my clothes which had become wet from holding Bella and then ran downstairs again and mopped the floor. The last thing I wanted was her catching me and then feeling bad about dripping water everywhere.

The doorbell rang just as the shower cut out and I hurriedly grabbed my wallet and paid the delivery guy who handed over the pizzas I had ordered.

I had just set the food down on the table when Bella came back down the stairs. She looked as if she had been crying again.

"Oh, baby girl. Come here." I held out my arms and she sank into them again, not crying this time but just clinging to my shirt.

"You know, you might not want to hear this right now," I told her. "But there's a lot of other good guys out there. None of them are deserving of you, of course, but one of them might be a little more deserving than the rest."

She sniffled and I could tell that she didn't really believe a word I was saying.

I tried again.

"I know it hurt, Bells. It hurts now and it'll probably hurt for a long time afterwards, but what you've got to remember is that you are a beautiful, clever, amazing young woman and if Edward doesn't recognise that then it's his loss."

"You have to say that." Her voice hitched. "You're my dad."

I squeezed her tighter. "I don't have to say it. I'm not going to lie and say that you didn't get your good looks entirely from my side of the family."

She gave a watery laugh at that.

"But I say it because it's true. Edward was lucky to have you and he'll never have anyone as amazing as you again."

Bella didn't reply to that, but she did loosen her grip on me, so I continued.

"Now, I'm not good with this sort of thing, if you couldn't already tell." That drew a reluctant giggle from her. "But I understand that normally girls eat ice-cream in this kind of scenario."

Well, I thought they did. I had seen it on TV at some point.

"But we don't have any, so I've got pizza instead."

Bella laughed softly and this time when she took a step back she looked less fragile than before.

"Pizza is good," she agreed.

"Excellent." I clapped my hands together.

Dishing the slices out onto the plates I had brought in from the kitchen, I sat down next to Bella on the couch.

"Dad, can I ask you something?"

Chewing on a slice of pizza, I nodded. She picked absently at one of the pepperonis on her plate.

"Did it hurt like this when Mom left?" she asked. "Like your heart's been torn out and stamped on and you'll never be happy again?"

I froze, mid-chew and then swallowed my mouthful heavily.

I had many feelings towards her mother. Some of them weren't particularly complimentary, I was ashamed to admit.

But Bella had asked and so I would try to answer her honestly.

"Yes, at first," I admitted. "It did hurt a lot and that's something it takes a long time to recover from. But it wasn't all bad."

"What do you mean?" She turned to face me curiously.

"When she left me, I was so afraid that you had gone too. But I got to keep you; you were still here. You're my baby, Bells. You're the most important thing in my world. So while I was devastated that your mom had left, I was happy at the same time, because I hadn't had to lose you as well."

I averted my eyes as I talked. That period of my life wasn't something I looked back fondly on. Renée had left a trail of devastation behind her, but at the same time it was all worth it, because my baby girl was still here with me.

I wasn't prepared for Bella's reaction to my confession and so was caught unawares when she threw her arms around my neck, nearly knocking both our plates off our laps as she did.

"I love you, daddy," she muttered into my neck.

I smiled. That was what I lived for.

"Love you too, Bells," I repeated gruffly.

She sat back and began to eat her food, looking a bit happier than before. I ran a hand over her hair and she smiled at me, a little sadly, but it looked like everything was going to be all right given some time.

My Bells was a fighter.

I was still going to kill the Cullen boy for what he'd done to her though.

That I could promise.


End file.
